


what you found in the sunlight

by constantblur



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, but one does not simply say no to brainworms, i’m late to this fandom so this is probably Take #403, just an indulgent imagining of what a scene between thanzag on the surface would look like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantblur/pseuds/constantblur
Summary: “Come to give me the kiss of death?” Zagreus says playfully, even though the effort makes his breath wheeze.“That hardly seems necessary,” Thanatos says dryly. “You always mark yourself for death well before I ever show up.”Zagreus sighs. “And here I thought I’d finally get to experience what all those mortals do. The god of gentle death come to take my soul away on a gentle kiss.” A small laugh shakes out of him. “Haven’t had the pleasure before. Death by vermin or bone hydra hardly wins me the chance to be reaped by you.”
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 424





	what you found in the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i wrote this a few nights ago after i got my first clear but then fell into an election-induced depression fog and couldn’t be bothered to edit or post it hhhhhhh but okay if ever there was a time when soft thanzag is needed it’s now. 
> 
> man though just ONE scene on the surface and already i was suffering severe brainworms thinking about supergiant blessing us with a patch where, after romancing thanatos, he appears at persephone’s garden to take zagreus home. can you imagine. all the sweet and funny dialogue. all the angst potential. hnnnnng. my need for self-indulgence kept me up until 5am so here please enjoy the fruits of my latest hyperfixation.
> 
> (i don’t imagine anything in this little ficlet is wildly canon-conflicting, but disclaimer that i don’t know the full and complete story of each ending since i’ve only gotten the first three and haven’t read too deeply on spoilers. sorry if anything sticks out weirdly.)

The pull is weak, but it grips Thanatos stronger than any other soul.

He reaches back immediately.

It’s an impulse he’s going to have to learn to curb sooner or later. He has a job to do, and there are rules, procedures, sacred duties that he’s respected and upheld since he reaped his first soul all those many millenia ago. Long before this one particular soul even existed. He can’t just ignore his responsibilities or fulfill them on a whim, can’t rotate his whole being on its axis so as to better align itself with this one soul. It’s a shameful degree of fecklessness, rash and selfish and utterly at odds with who he is on a fundamental level.

But all these thoughts are just meaningless noise in his head compared to this soul.

Thanatos finds himself in the sort of place he imagines Elysium was modeled after: alive and thriving, lush green grass and lovely flowers, trees with branches that droop with ripe, vibrant fruits. There’s a gentle breeze and birdsong, and the sun does not feel as harsh as it does in most other places on earth.

It’s very beautiful here.

The thought brings some measure of comfort, yet still somehow just makes Thanatos feel even sadder.

Thanatos sees him then.

He’s sitting on the grass, leaning heavily against a vine-wrapped column, face unnaturally pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. It’s clear he’s having trouble breathing, and he seems to be in pain. Nothing he’s unaccustomed to, of course.

Zagreus is dying. Again.

But not dead yet. Thanatos has no business being here right now.

A woman kneels beside Zagreus, her arms around him as she cries softly. She looks up, and Thanatos realizes she’d felt him approach.

“You’re here to take him back,” Persephone says softly, tremulously.

“I’m here to take him home,” Thanatos says.

“Home,” she repeats quietly. She looks down at Zagreus, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. His eyes blink up at her, unfocused. “Yes. You need to go home now, darling.”

“I’ll come back,” Zagreus rasps. “I promise.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Persephone says. She presses a kiss to his hair and stands up. As she walks down the stone pathway towards a cottage covered in moss, she pauses by Thanatos, gently laying a hand on his shoulder. She smiles at him, and then continues on.

Thanatos goes to Zagreus’s side.

“Hello, Than,” Zagreus says. Like this is some casual, chance meeting. Like Thanatos isn’t here to reap him, drown him in the Styx and force him back to the place he hates so much he keeps choosing death over staying there.

“Hello, Zag,” Thanatos replies expressionlessly.

How does Zagreus not hate him?

“Come to give me the kiss of death?” Zagreus says playfully, even though the effort makes his breath wheeze.

“That hardly seems necessary,” Thanatos says dryly. “You always mark yourself for death well before I ever show up.”

Zagreus sighs. “And here I thought I’d finally get to experience what all those mortals do. The god of gentle death come to take my soul away on a gentle kiss.” A small laugh shakes out of him. “Haven’t had the pleasure before. Death by vermin or bone hydra hardly wins me the chance to be reaped by you.”

Thanatos frowns. “That’s just a turn of phrase.”

“No kiss then?” Zagreus says. “Shame.”

“Zagreus,” Thanatos says, frustrated. “I’m sorry.”

Zagreus’s eyes narrow, brow furrowed as he tries to focus on Thanatos’s face. “I don’t actually care, Than. You don’t have to. I’m practically a corpse. Save it until I’m alive enough to appreciate it, all right?”

Thanatos struggles to find the words, unsure if he should even say them right now. Does he even have time to? Zagreus is still strong enough to carry on for a little while yet, but Thanatos has his doubts he can hold on long enough for Thanatos to stumble through whatever it is he wants to say.

“That’s not what I meant,” he manages to get out, and then stops, hesitating.

“Can’t imagine what you’re apologizing for then,” Zagreus says, in a tone that is plainly trying to lure Thanatos into explaining.

Thanatos sighs. There’s really no saying “no” to Zagreus anymore, is there?

“I have to take you back,” he says quietly.

Zagreus takes his hand, and it’s like holding a flame, but Thanatos grips it tight. “I know, Than,” Zagreus says just as quietly.

“But I didn’t have to try to keep you there,” Thanatos continues. “In the beginning, when you were—you were just trying to get here. I didn’t have to try to stop you.”

“Yes, you did,” Zagreus says, and there’s forgiveness in his tone, and Thanatos doesn’t deserve it. “My father—“

“Your father is nothing more than a glorified bureaucrat,” Thanatos says sharply. “I do not serve him so much as I serve the Underworld. No matter his title, he’s not my lord and cannot control me.”

Zagreus blinks in surprise. “Oh. I thought . . . “

“Of course you did. Everyone thinks it, most of all your father. But in the end,” Thanatos says, “I’ll reap him too.”

Zagreus sucks in a breath, and for a moment Thanatos is worried their conversation is about to be cut short, but then Zagreus wheezes out another laugh. “Is it wrong of me to think that’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me?”

Thanatos stares at him balefully. “I was talking about your _father_.”

“Right, very inappropriate of me, sorry,” Zagreus says, unconvincingly.

Thanatos sighs.

“Doesn’t matter,” Zagreus says after a moment. “I’m not mad. You were doing what you thought was right.”

“I was doing what I thought would keep you in the Underworld,” Thanatos says, letting go of Zagreus’s hand. “With me.”

Zagreus’s face goes soft, and his heat-fevered hand brands Thanatos’s cheek where he cups it gently. “You’ve more than made up for it,” he says. “Don’t even think on it anymore. I don’t.”

Thanatos lays his hand over Zagreus’s, closing his eyes to savor this for a moment, just for a moment. There’s not much time left here in this sun-soaked garden. He opens his eyes and smiles at Zagreus. “You met your mother,” he says.

“Yes,” Zagreus says, smiling back. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Thanatos runs his fingers through Zagreus’s hair. “There is something very beautiful about her familiarity,” he says.

Zagreus’s smile widens. His eyes close and he leans his head back against the column. “And I felt the sun,” he says. “It was worth it.”

“So you will come back here,” Thanatos says, not quite a question because he’d already known the answer long before he even arrived in this garden.

“Yes,” Zagreus says. “Even if Father . . . if I must fight my way back, I’ll do it. Again and again.” Zagreus takes in a deep breath, like he’s savoring it, this crisp, clean air that doesn’t reach the Underworld. A contented smile pulls at his lips. “I told her about you.”

Thanatos shouldn’t be here. There are thousands and thousands of souls pulling at him, souls that have been waiting for him for all the minutes he’s spent here by a living man’s side. The work is neverending and must be done. Thanatos has never questioned it, never resisted or disregarded it, never allowed that there could be anything more meaningful or deserving of his attention. He has always been a devoted servant to his sacred calling.

The simple act of being here right now is an impertinence Thanatos can hardly fathom. How arrogant is he, to allow himself this uncharacteristic indulgence? As arrogant as he is foolish, he supposes, for only a fool could come to regard a man as sacred as his calling, worthy of such treacherous indulgence.

What is it Aphrodite is always saying? _There is no common sense with love_.

How very senseless to let himself love another with such devotion.

Senseless, reckless, dangerous . . . inevitable. _With whom should Death belong, if not with Blood, with Life?_

“Than,” Zagreus gasps out, distraught. His hand clenches around Thanatos’s.

“I’ve got you,” Thanatos says, putting his other arm around Zagreus and pulling him to his chest.

“Thank you,” Zagreus says raggedly, “for being here.”

Does Zagreus even understand what it means for Thanatos to be here right now?

Thanatos looks down and gets caught in Zagreus’s gaze. It’s solemn and patient in a way Zagreus so rarely is, and Thanatos is moved by the weight of it. Yes. Yes, he understands.

“I’m ready to go home now,” Zagreus whispers. “With you.”

“Then let’s go home,” Thanatos whispers back. And feeling a little indulgent, a little whimsical, he leans in and brushes a soft kiss to Zagreus’s lips.

He pulls back to see Zagreus smiling again. 

He wishes it could be like this every time. It makes him ache in impossible, indescribable ways to imagine Zagreus dying in pain over and over and over again.

There’s something selfish in the thought too. He doesn’t know who the Fates call to collect Zagreus after all those violent deaths—probably Charon, as he seems to have committed himself to following Zagreus through the Underworld. Thanatos is grateful he doesn’t have to see Zagreus after such brutal, bloody ends, but he can’t help feeling jealous that anyone but himself should be the one to carry Zagreus home.

“I do hope you’re planning to follow up on that when I’m back on my feet,” Zagreus says, and Thanatos sighs. Ridiculous as always, even right up to his last breath.

Thanatos gathers Zagreus in his arms. Zagreus melts into him, exhaling his last on a quiet, contented sigh. Stepping slowly through the verdant garden, Thanatos carries his precious cargo to the river. Here, it’s blue and beautiful, with moss-covered stones and sunkissed daffodils.

Thanatos will do everything he can to make sure Zagreus makes it back here. Zagreus deserves this, the sunlight and the sweet air and the love of his mother. The dignity and peace of a gentle death.

The arms of a lover to carry him home.

_Let it always be like this_ , Thanatos prays. He steps into the river, and the Styx rises to welcome them.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/constantblur_)


End file.
